Judge Kent, the well-known jurist, presided in a case in which a man was indicted for burglary, and the evidence at the trial showed that the burglary consisted in cutting a hole through a tent in which several persons were sleeping, and then projecting his head and arm through the hole and abstracting various articles of value. It was claimed by his counsel that inasmuch as he never entered into the tent with his whole body, he had not committed the offence charged, and must therefore be set at liberty. In reply to this plea, the judge told the jury that if they were not satisfied that the whole man was involved in the crime, they might bring in a verdict of guilty against so much of him as was involved. The jury, after a brief consultation, found the right arm, the right shoulder, and the head of the prisoner guilty of the offence of burglary. The judge accordingly sentenced the right arm, the right shoulder, and the head to imprisonment with hard labour in the State prison for two years, remarking, that as to the rest of the man’s body, he might do with it what he pleased.
Lord Justice-clerk Braxfield was a man of few words and of strong business habits, and consequently when he courted his second wife, he said to her: ‘Lizzie, I’m looking out for a wife, and I thought you just the person to suit me. Let me have your answer on or off to-morrow, and nae mair aboot it.’ The lady, next day, replied in the affirmative. Shortly after the marriage, Lord Braxfield’s butler came to him to give up his situation because he could not bear her ladyship’s continual scolding. ‘Man,’ Braxfield exclaimed, ‘ye’ve little to complain of; ye may be thankfu’ ye’re no’ married to her.’
During the time that Brougham was rising in his profession, he had a friend, a brother-counsel, who had contracted the habit of commencing the examination of a witness in these words: ‘Now, sir, I am about to put a question to you, and I don’t care which way you answer it.’ Brougham, with others, had begun to grow tired of this eternal formula, and consequently one morning he met his brother-lawyer near the temple and addressed him thus: ‘Now, Jones, I am about to put a question to you, and I don’t care which way you answer it.—How do you do?’
The celebrated lawyer Butt was one night going home very late, when he was accosted by a desperate-looking villain in one of the suburbs of Dublin, and asked what he was going ‘to stand.’ ‘Well,’ replied Butt meekly, ‘I’m very sorry that I can’t give you much, my friend, but what I have we will share. Here,’ he continued, drawing a revolver from his pocket, ‘is a weapon which has six chambers; I will give you three, and’—— But the lawyer immediately found himself alone.
‘Mr Robinson,’ said counsel, ‘you say you once officiated in a pulpit. Do you mean that you preached?’—‘No, sir; I held the candle for the man who did.’ ‘Ah, the court understood you differently; they supposed that the discourse came from you.’—‘No, sir; I only throwed a light on it.’
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ said an Irish barrister, ‘it will be for you to say whether this defendant shall be allowed to come into court with unblushing footsteps, with the cloak of hypocrisy in his mouth, and draw three bullocks out of my client’s pocket with impunity.’
We have heard of several cases of female ingenuity in aiding the escape of prisoners. Here is one. The criminals were handcuffed, and with their escort were awaiting the train which would convey them to the county jail. Suddenly a woman rushed through the crowd of spectators, and with a shower of tears, cried out: ‘Kiss me; good-bye, Ned.’ The escort good-naturedly allowed the process of osculation to be performed, and the sheriff smiled feelingly. The woman passed a key from her own to the prisoner’s mouth, with which he undid the ‘bracelets,’ and escaped whilst the train was in motion.
There is a girl who seems to have peculiar notions of breach of promise cases, for she threatens to sue her own father for breach of promise! She explains that the old gentleman first gave his consent to her marriage with her lover, and then withdrew it, and that in consequence her beau got tired of waiting, and has gone off with another girl.
‘Prisoner at the bar,’ said the judge to a man on his trial for murder, ‘is there anything you wish to say before sentence is passed upon you?’—‘Judge,’ replied the prisoner, ‘there has been altogether too much said already. I knew all along somebody would get hurt, if these people didn’t keep their mouths shut. It might as well be me, perhaps, as anybody else. Drive on, judge, and give me as little sentiment as you can get along on. I can stand hanging, but I hate gush.’